Bike trail building not all work

By Bron Willis

Updated14 July 2018 — 7:31amfirst published 12 July 2018 — 9:06am

A rider tests a new trail.

While many of us are turning on computers and downing our morning coffees, mountain bike trail builders around the country are starting their days with a shovel, a bike and morning mist on a mountainside.

Russell Eckersely is one such trail builder. For six months leading up to the March opening of a new mountain bike park in the central Victorian town of Harcourt, Eckersley called Mount Alexander his office – and, as a passionate rider, his playground.

Each morning he set to work creating the perfect ride for thrill- seekers on two wheels.

“It’s about a connection with nature,” says Eckersley. “It’s an opportunity to take yourself away from the stresses of everyday life.”

Eckersley’s work finessing the turns and contours of the trails was the final step in a project that was years in the making. La Larr Ba Gauwa Mountain Bike Park means “stones and mountain” in the language of the Dja Dja Wurrung people, traditional owners of the land.

Trail building is only one of the myriad of ways in which Eckersley has thread bikes through his career – but for many others, trail building is a lifelong career.

But there’s one thing that trail builders seem to have in common: an unquenchable thirst for riding.

Trail builders like Eckersley also harbour a desire to share that love with others and to further the sport.

“It’s a pretty great feeling to know that our work becomes part of others’ fun,” he says.

According to French, Eckersley’s passion for mountain biking is shared by all Dirt Art employees, most of whom came to the industry through riding, rather than traditional career paths.

“It's not like civil construction work. You’d certainly get paid more on a work site with one of the big construction companies in Melbourne, doing similar things to what our guys do.”

But there is a stark difference between a city construction site and the workplace of trail builders like Eckersley.

Even on an wintery Central Victorian morning, the granitic surrounds of Mount Alexander offer a beauty – and the chance to contribute – that Eckersley wouldn’t exchange for a hefty pay packet and a move to the city.

French started working in similar roles to Eckersley as a hands-on trail builder but in a volunteer capacity, building trails in his native Tasmania, well before mountain biking enjoyed the widespread popularity it does now. That work turned into small contracts for local councils, and soon to the founding of Dirt Art in 2008.

“I set it up purely to continue [building trails] in a formal capacity,” says French. “I didn't have any great aspirations of ever doing it as a full-time job even.”

A decade later, the company now employs roughly 100 people across the country at any given time.

“Certainly mountain biking as a destination tourism product is rapidly growing,” says French. “It's still quite a young industry … I think [it] has plenty of legs in it yet.”